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Saturday, July 3, 2010

The true meaning of the Statue of Liberty

It seems that many people misinterpret the true meaning of the Statue of Liberty. They believe it means that the U.S. wants the impoverished, the poorly educated, and the unfortunate of other nations because of the slogan that is implanted on the base of the statue: "Give me your tired, give me your poor, give me your huddled masses."

Yet that saying was not what the original purpose of the statue was all about. In fact, the original intent of the statue was to give us your folks who are fleeing oppression and we will provide them with an opportunity at a free and successful life. We will give them the opportunity to provide a good life for themselves.

It appears that the "huddled masses" quote was misinterpreted a while back to mean that we want your down trodden, your poor, your unfortunate, your disadvantaged, your uneducated, and we will provide you with a free education, free health care, and allow you to become democrats.

Actually, Emma Lazarus wrote the "huddled masses" poem as part of a campaign to build the pedestal of the statue. The poem was called The New Colossus, and it was written in 1883, and not even inserted onto the pedestal of the statue until 1903 when it was engraved onto the base.

The poem was forgotten and not even a part of the celebration of the opening of the statue in 1883, and it was not until 1903 that it gained much attention outside the original contest to raise money.

In fact, the original intent of the statue had nothing to do with immigration, it had to do with freedom and liberty. France was thanking us for being the first nation ever to make the rulers of their country aware that freedom and liberty was possible. This is ultimately what lead to the French Revolution.

Of course the French Revolution failed because they fought for the rights of man (man as a single entity) while the founders of the U.S. fought for the rights of individual men (we all have inalienable rights that cannot be taken away by anything other than the government).

The reason the statue was build had nothing to do with the Lazarus poem, and yet once again history was twisted so that one group of people who wanted to convince the children of the world the Statue of Liberty was all about immigration. This was all one big lie that was taught in schools since 1903. This was a distortion by the progressives to make you think America was willing to take anyone, from any place in the world or universe.

The truth is, the statue was a celebration of the Declaration of Independence. In fact, we don't call it the statue of immigration, we call it the statue of liberty. Lady Liberty is stepping forward. She is meant to be carrying the torch of liberty from the United States to the rest of the world.

And in the proceeding years, that is exactly what she did. And she offered her freedom to France and the rest of Europe, and those countries came up with their own form of freedom, and their own interpretation. That's what other countries do. We have a right to choose our own forms of freedom.

And yet none compare to that of the United States. None. We were the first to establish freedom, we were the first to signs anything like the Declaration of Independence, and we were the first to form a U.S. Constitution that was meant to protect the natural rights of men.

And yet, all these years later, the only country to understand the true meaning of the Declaration of Independence, of the U.S. Constitution, and the Statue of Liberty are those who would consider themselves classical liberals and now conservative or libertarian. The rest of the world has their own skewered interpretation of the true meaning of what kind of freedom we have here in the United States.

Those who intentionally or unintentionally misinterpret the meaning of these great documents, or this great statue, are those who mean to change the United States to be something other than what the founders had intended.

Why do you fail to mention anything about enlightenment and the fact that enlightenment originated in Europe. Also, without the aid of France we never would have won the revolutionary war. It is very dangerous to teach people that their country is exceptional and above the rest of the world. It is no wonder other countries see us as arrogant naives. Misinformed blogs like this do little to change that .

2. America IS exceptional. This is true because we are a republic and our people are free. We are not arrogant, we are enjoying the rewards of that freedom. When other people see how great freedom can be, they want it too. If they like what they see they will have to fight for it, because freedom must be fought for -- every day. America is the champion of freedom. We are a mighty nation, and our people are happy, and our economy is great, because of freedom. Just by looking at any history book, and even the recent history book in the Middle East, you can see that because of America many people now live in freedom. Some dictators misinform their people about freedom, yet in today's world it's hard not to see how wonderful life can be when free. It's hard not to want it for yourself. It's hard not to want to fight for it yourself, so you can have what Americans have. That's not arrogance, it's not misinformation, it's a fact.

WHAT????? You had slavery in 1865. You killed 90% of Native Americans and put the rest into the concentration camps aka reservations. YOU HAD SEGREGATION LAWS IN 1960s. You support the holocaust of Palestinian people in their own Palestine. LOL. Jesus Christ!!!! ... twisted people.PS tens of thousands innocent children from Hiroshima and Nagasaki thank you for bringing freedom to japan

This is so freaking confusing. You say "in fact, original intent of the statue saying to give us your folks who are fleeing oppression and we will provide them with an opportunity at a free and successful life. We will give them the opportunity to provide a good life for themselves." Then you turned around and basically said in fact that was NOT what it meant, that it was just a lie taught in school, that the statue had nothing to do with immigration. So did it, or did it not?!

What an interesting bit of sophistry is presented here. When one's political agenda colors every bit of one's ability to reason, it reminds me of the story of the man who fell asleep on the couch with Limburger cheese on his mustache. Not realizing this, he woke, took a sniff and exclaimed, "This couch stinks!" He jumped up, took a whiff of the room and exclaimed, "This room stinks!" He then ran about the whole house and yelled, "The whole house stinks!" With this, he ran outside. He then concluded, with a scream, "The whole world stinks!"

The quote is NOT:

"Give me your tired, give me your poor, give me your huddled masses."

It was very misleading, but perhaps more conducive to an obvious political agenda, to omit so much of the actual quote, without indicating this fact with, at the very least, an ellipsis and possibly a short disclaimer. Sorry, but let's call altering the quote what it is. It is to lie by omission.

Wit and Wisdom

Perhaps the greatest champion for the conservative cause, even more so than the most articulate conservative voices, is the most liberal fascist president in the history of the United States: Barack Obama.

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Books I've read

The 5,000 year leap

Ben Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson

The forgotten man: A new history of the Great Depression: Amity Shlaes